


The Secret of the Machines

by K_dAzrael



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Bittersweet, M/M, Machine Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Masturbation, Minor Character Death, Minor Violence, suicide of minor android character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-22
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-08-27 17:18:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16706686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/K_dAzrael/pseuds/K_dAzrael
Summary: There was no Markus and no android uprising. The RK800 prototype Connor and Lieutenant Hank Anderson of the Detroit PD are stuck in a reluctant partnership, investigating a few isolated incidents of the problem known as deviancy. Progress is slow and resentment is mutual, but they have to pass the time somehow - if sometimes that means sloppy sex in the back of Hank's car, it's nobody's business but their own.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> But remember, please, the Law by which we live,  
> We are not built to comprehend a lie,  
> We can neither love nor pity nor forgive.  
> If you make a slip in handling us you die!  
> We are greater than the Peoples or the Kings—  
> Be humble, as you crawl beneath our rods!-  
> Our touch can alter all created things,  
> We are everything on earth — except The Gods!  
> \- Rudyard Kipling, [The Secret of the Machines](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46786/the-secret-of-the-machines)

Connor stares ahead at the entrance to the apartment building and the man loitering there shifting from foot to foot and rubbing his arms. Connor’s ocular display zeroes in on the premature skin deterioration and redness of the man’s eyes, indicating a high probability he is a red ice addict. His name is Christopher Deakes and he has multiple convictions for drug possession and petty theft. Connor suspects the man’s intention is to ‘coat-tail’ – that is, to enter the building in the wake of a legitimate resident for the purpose of committing further theft, or maybe just to find somewhere out of the rain to sleep.

This potential crime doesn’t concern Connor; he is not here for Mr Deakes, but for the suspected deviant that neighbours report has taken up residence in apartment 3B. Based on neighbours’ descriptions it seems like it might be an MP500, but it has removed its LED, changed its hair colour, and is no longer wearing CyberLife clothing. Its owner was found dead under suspicious circumstances.

Lieutenant Anderson stretches, the seat of the car creaking. He slurps noisily at the aperture in a takeaway coffee cup as the rain drums down heavily, blurring the shapes on the street. “This is a bust,” he says. “Fuckin’ waste of an afternoon.”

“The purpose of a stake-out–” Connor begins.

“Our suspect got spooked – he probably figured his neighbours clocked him as an android and lit out. He’s not coming back here.”

“It,” Connor corrects. “It’s not a person.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Anderson groans, rolling his neck. “Look I got better things to do than sit here on my numb ass enjoying your _scintillating_ company.”

“Like what?” Connor demands. “Jimmy’s Bar doesn’t open until five PM, Lieutenant.”

“Listen asshole, you can get a ride back to the station or you can hop out into the rain. Your choice.”

“I would prefer to return to the station. I can work on some other leads while you are… doing whatever you consider more important.”

Lieutenant Anderson turns his head and gives Connor a look. Connor tries to analyse it out the corner of his eye while keeping his gaze trained on the apartment complex. Anderson seems to be conveying that he considers Connor infuriating and ridiculous.

“Fuck it,” Anderson says, turning the ignition. He pulls away from the kerb and makes an illegal U-turn.

As they drive along, Connor calls up the street map and plots the most efficient route. Lieutenant Anderson is taking a meandering way through side-streets which he erroneously thinks are quicker than the main thoroughfares. Anderson prides himself on his local knowledge and his wide network of connections. He believes that Detroit is a great and proud city, more ‘genuine’ than other places. This view is biased and irrational: if he had been born elsewhere he would not think so highly of a city with crumbling infrastructure and skyrocketing unemployment.

“Take the next left,” Connor tells him as they slow on approach to a stoplight.

“What the fuck for? Nothing out that way.” The rain has eased off and the ancient car’s wipers have begun to squeak. Anderson fumbles with the sticky controls to shut them off.

“Humour me,” Connor gives Anderson a direct look.

Anderson shifts again in his seat and makes a throat-clearing sound; he blinks and stares straight ahead, the car lurching forward as soon as the light turns green.

Connor directs him left and then right and into a side street paved with broken, corrugated concrete, the tires rumbling along the uneven surface. They enter the dead end of an abandoned industrial site, a yard framed by empty, box-shaped buildings. The glass is broken in every window and most of the roofs have collapsed, giving the place the look of the street façade of an old Western movie.

“Pull over here,” Connor instructs, pointing to the L-shaped shelter of a partially-collapsed brick wall.

“Listen,” Anderson grumbles even as he does as instructed, “I’m really not in the mood to play hunt-the-deviant-in-the-abandoned-warehouse today, so unless…”

His complaint trails off as Connor unfastens his seatbelt and climbs into the backseat. His belt jangles as he unbuckles it and Anderson turns and stares.

“Are you coming?” Connor asks, pushing his pants down to his thighs.

“Is this what your social relations programme tells you counts as seduction?”

“Humans are creatures of habit, Lieutenant. You’ve been amenable to this in the past, my preconstructions tell me you’re amenable to it now.”

“Think you’re real cute, don’t you?” Anderson remarks, opening the driver’s side door to climb out. He groans as he gets to his feet. The driver’s door slams and then the adjacent one opens and Connor feels a rush of cold air over his exposed skin. He gets on his hands and knees and hears Anderson make a quiet, rumbling sound of appreciation, a large hand rubbing over his hip and down his thigh.

“Tell me something, Connor,” Anderson’s thumb slides along the crease between his buttocks. “You’re built to detect shit, so why the hell did they give you a dick and an asshole?”

“I’m an advanced prototype; a field model. I was given a broad range of features and when I report back to CyberLife they note which proved useful to my work, and which can be eliminated in future models as a cost-saving measure.”

Anderson chuckles. “So ‘use it or lose it’, is that what you’re saying?”

“I’m saying that I have advantages subsequent versions may lack.”

Another quiet ripple of laughter. “Yeah, your ‘advantages’ are considerable.”

Connor moves into a deeper bend, lifting his hips. Anderson is susceptible to pornographic images – if Connor gets him sufficiently engaged, perhaps he will stop talking.

“Fuck,” Anderson says in a low, rough voice. He slips a hand between Connor’s thighs and fondles his scrotum.

Connor reaches back and grasps his wrist. “Not that, just fuck me.”

“Don’t know what grudge you’ve got against foreplay. You even get anything out of this?” Anderson slips the tip of his finger inside Connor and makes a sound almost like an animal’s growl. “Can’t get over how they made you wet and ready to go. What kind of fuckin’ perv…?”

Connor could point out that android genitals are made purely for human enjoyment (there’s no other reason for them to exist, after all), but it’s the kind of observation that might be considered off-putting. Instead, he says: “put on a condom.”

“Yeah, fuck – I don’t know where you’ve been, either.”

Connor hasn’t been anywhere except the interior of this shitty car and the precinct in weeks. Lieutenant Anderson is the only person he’s ever had sexual contact with and STIs are not communicable between humans and androids. However, removing and cleaning his anal sleeve is a finicky process, and Connor doesn’t care to waste his time. “Hurry up,” he urges.

“Yeah, yeah – you’re a real fuckin’ killjoy, y’know, even when we’re… when we’re doing this.”

Connor eases down onto his elbows and turns his head to look back over his left shoulder. Anderson pulls out his wallet and tugs out a gold foil square. He bites off the corner and spits it onto the cracked concrete. A notification alerts Connor that littering is a misdemeanour offence.

Anderson fumbles with his zipper and pulls out his penis. He is only semi-erect – maybe it’s the cold, damp air; maybe his age; maybe he needs a little more encouragement. None of that is Connor’s problem. He watches from the corner of his eye as Anderson rubs himself briskly until he achieves tumescence, then rolls down the condom. Anderson’s penis is within the parameters of average length for an American male, but thick and substantial. Connor spreads his thighs as wide as he can against the constriction of the fabric.

“You want this?” Anderson grunts, rubbing the latex-covered tip of his penis against Connor’s opening. He pulls back, making a low, amused sound as Connor tilts his hips to chase it.

“Yes – I told you as much already, Lieutenant.”

“Say please.”

Connor considers a number of options for a response, even preconstructing the exact right angle and force it would take to kick out and plant his heel in Anderson’s crotch. He focusses his eyes on the dirty upholstery, moving his fingertips to feel the rough texture. “Please,” he says, keeping his voice neutral.

Anderson doesn’t have the patience to tease further – he makes a low sound, swearing under his breath, and Connor feels the pressure as his penis slides into him.

Connor still doesn’t fully understand the attraction of this particular act. The first time he did it he registered the pressure of the intrusion and the harsh, rhythmic stimulation of his sensors as Anderson’s thrusting picked up speed. He thought: _is this it? Is this what they like? Can this really be what the fuss was all about?_ He wouldn’t describe the sensations as pleasure, exactly – it was too rough, too urgent for that.

Connor curls his hands, scratching faintly on the car seat, feeling grit beneath his fingertips. Anderson grips Connor’s hips tightly, fucking into him with a rough, selfish rhythm. “Shit,” he says, “never get over how quiet you are – might as well fuck a RealDoll. Do you even like this? Do you want it?”

“Yes.”

“Look at you – fuckin’ Six Million Dollar Man can’t get enough of an old guy’s dick, is that right?”

“Yes, Lieutenant,” Connor says, because he wants it to continue.

“They fucked up when they made you, Connor,” Anderson’s voice is rough, his breathing laboured. “Must have left some error in your software that made you a kinky little freak. Shit, just look at you take that.”

Connor puts his fingers in his mouth, detecting cookie crumbs, dog hair, trace amounts of spilled coffee. He feels – he feels…

Anderson’s grip tightens and then loosens on his hips, his thighs tremble against the back of Connor’s as he reaches his climax. Anderson pants for a few seconds and makes a reluctant, groaning sound as he pulls away. He discards the spent condom on the ground – another littering notification pops up in Connor’s eyeline as he sits up and pulls his clothing back into place.

Anderson’s hand comes down on his shoulder. Connor glances at it, mildly perplexed, as Anderson squeezes, almost an awkward caress. “You want, uh – listen, you want a hand or whatever, to finish? I can…”

Connor blinks, LED flashing yellow for a microsecond as he interprets the awkward, somewhat distracted statement. Anderson is offering to reciprocate the orgasm Connor enabled.

“That isn’t necessary,” Connor says. He shrugs off the hand and climbs forward into the passenger seat.

“Fine, suit your fuckin’ self.” The backdoor slams and the driver’s door creaks open. Anderson settles himself back into the seat with a grunt and a sigh. He rubs his hands over his face and then drags this fingers through his grey hair. He turns the radio on and flips through stations until he finds something lighter than his usual death metal racket: mainstream rock. He stares through the windshield and drums his fingers on the steering wheel, brow pinched in a thoughtful, troubled expression. He does not turn the ignition.

“I thought we were going back to the station, Lieutenant,” Connor prompts.

“Tell me something, Connor…” Anderson’s frown deepens and he pauses again; Connor folds his hands and waits for the enquiry. “Why _the fuck_ do you do that?”

“Why do I do what?”

“Ask me to fuck you when you don’t get anything out of it? I mean, do you think it’s going to make me trust you, or something?”

“No, I don’t think it will make you trust me.”

“You think it’ll… I don’t know, fuckin’ placate me or something, like you’re throwing me a bone?”

“No, it’s not about you.”

“What is it about?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Oh yeah, there’s some sophisticated android logic behind your need to get railed?”

Connor doesn’t reply, looking straight ahead through he steamed-up windshield.

“Fuck,” Anderson slams his hands on the wheel, the horn blipping from the impact. He shakes his head and finally turns the ignition. “I need a fuckin’ drink.”

Anderson heads in the direction of the waterfront, stopping off at a seedy liquor store and returning with a fifth of his whisky of choice surreptitiously wrapped in a brown paper bag before driving on to a familiar spot overlooking the Ambassador Bridge: a walkway near a dilapidated children’s playground.

Anderson has brought Connor to this place twice before, always when he is in a brooding, depressive mood and so sunken in his own thoughts he seems barely aware of Connor’s presence. It is moments like this that Connor wonders if Anderson has admitted defeat; if he has finally recognised that Connor is a machine, not a person capable of judging his actions. Connor follows Anderson out of the car, walking a few steps behind him as Anderson lumbers over to a bench. He avoids the rain-sprinkled wood by sitting on the back of the structure, his feet planted on the seat.

Connor comes to a halt between Anderson and the railings at the walkway’s outer edge. He considers calling a taxi – clearly Anderson is not actually going to return to the precinct any time soon. Something (curiosity?) urges him to stay. Learning about Anderson and all his baffling, copious humanity is something of a side project for Connor – if he could understand Anderson he could predict him, and that would make their enforced cooperation run more smoothly.

Anderson’s breath curls like smoke in the cold damp air and he coughs before taking a pull on his bottle, staring out at the bridge. “You know anything about ethics, Connor?”

“Yes.” Connor is not bound by ethics protocols, like other androids are – the safe, household models, but he knows the principles.

Another long swallow and a sigh. “Here’s my conundrum – I’m considering the ethics of us fucking. What I figure is: either you’re a machine, in which case you can’t consent. But if you’re a machine I guess that doesn’t matter – a fuckin’ dildo or a Fleshlight can’t consent either, doesn’t make it unethical to fuck one.”

“Or?”

“Or you’re a person. And I don’t know, if you’re a person, if you can consent or not. Because you’re all bound up by these secret rules I don’t know about. When you ask me to fuck you, I don’t know if you’re asking of your own free will, or because something in your fucked-up programming makes you do it. So, that’s an issue.”

“We’ve had sex on three separate occasions. If you really had ethical concerns you would have brought them up before now.”

“Yeah well, I’m a shitty person, so there’s that. And I guess I’m susceptible to flattery.”

“If it assuages your conscience, I can assure you I am, in fact, a machine. Everything that seems human in me is a conscious design choice. I am meant to blend in.”

Anderson gazes at Connor with an expression that seems both suspicious and thoughtful. “You ever wonder if you could be like the androids you chase – if you could start to deviate?”

“I do not. I self-test regularly and submit to biweekly evaluations at CyberLife headquarters.”

“Sure, you’re Mr Clean.” Anderson takes another swig from his bottle.

“Are you still sceptical, Lieutenant? Even after all this time?”

“I still think that you can’t make somethin’ stronger, faster, and smarter than you and expect it to be content just following orders. I mean, what do you get out of this?”

“Out of what?” Connor remains unmoving as a gust of wind buffets him, tie flapping over his shoulder.

“This, all of this!” Anderson makes an expansive gesture. “Chasing down deviants, reporting to your superiors, going back to your closet at night to not-sleep. What’s the fucking point of it?”

“I follow my programming, I meet my objectives – that’s the point.” Connor pulls his tie back into place, tucking the end into his belt and adjusting the knot at his throat to straighten it.

“Why though? You think CyberLife’s gonna give you a Best in Show rosette or some shit?”

“Completing objectives is as close to a reward as an android gets.”

“Well aint that fuckin’ depressing?” Anderson wipes his mouth with the heel of his hand. “So what do you think about when you imagine the future? You think your life will get better, or worse, or just keep going in a shitty plateau?”

“I don’t think about the future – not beyond the end of my case objectives.”

“You ever think about dying?”

“I can’t die, I’m not alive.”

Anderson narrows his eyes. “You know what I fuckin’ mean, don’t be a smartass.”

“If I were to receive critical damage CyberLife would just upload my memories and programming into a new unit,” Connor taps the ‘53’ on his breast. “You’ve seen that before.”

“Yeah, but what if they didn’t? What if they decided just to let you stay all busted?”

“Then I would be unaware, unable to think anything.”

“You’re content with that? You exist just as long as they say so and then…” Anderson snaps his fingers. “And then gone, not even a chance to say goodbye?”

Connor nods.

“So if someone said to you: ‘Connor, this is your last day on Earth. Tomorrow we’re going to pull the plug and it’s night-night forever.’ What would you do?”

“What do you mean?”

“Would you find someone to fuck or uh… watch the sun set with? I don’t know–” Anderson waves one hand in a circular motion, “swim in the ocean, dance in the moonlight… what?”

“I would behave as normal – investigate and fulfil my objectives.”

“What if there were no objectives – what if everything was wrapped up in a neat bow, and you were free to do whatever?”

“Then I would simply wait to be recalled.”

Anderson points at him, then thumps his chest and lets out a belch. “Then you’re a stupid motherfucker, that’s what I think.”

“What I _think_ , Lieutenant,” Connor retorts, “is that when you attempt to draw me into these debates you are what psychoanalysts call ‘projecting’. Perhaps you think that if you can convince a machine that there is a purpose to life, and that death is something to fear, you can convince yourself.”

“You got me there,” Anderson chuckles, saluting Connor with his bottle. “Y’know, sometimes when you get pissed you seem almost like a real boy… almost _lifelike_ , in fact.”

“It’s a common delusion – humans wanting to believe in the humanity of machines.”

“Is that a fact?”

Connor nods. “Do you know about ELIZA?”

“No, who’s she?”

“ _It_ , Lieutenant.” Connor straightens his cuffs. “ELIZA was an early AI, back in the 1960s; a computer programme that could simulate superficial conversation. It repeated back the remarks of the human interacting with it in the form of questions, like a therapist.”

“Sounds boring.”

“You would think. And yet a lot of the human testers grew very attached to it, despite knowing it was only a computer programme that rearranged their prompts. They found the conversations meaningful. That’s all it takes for people to form connections – their own words parroted back to them.”

“You seem kind of smug about it for a guy who spends all his time just doing what men in white coats tell him.”

“I think it’s sad,” Connor continues, ignoring Anderson’s remark. “That humans are so desperate for any kind of connection. It must be troublesome to have so many emotional needs, knowing others can’t fulfil them.”

Anderson screws the top back on his whiskey bottle and slides it into his pocket. “Yeah ease up there, Sigmund Freud. Let’s get you back to your closet.” He climbs down from the bench and rubs at the small of his back. “Fuck, what a day.” He is not addressing Connor as he says this – his eyes are fixed on the twinkling lights of the bridge. Perhaps he is addressing Detroit, and all of Canada too.

*~*~*

Connor returns to the precinct when Anderson finally drops him off down the street. He sits at his console for an hour and twenty-three minutes dealing with correspondence and tips and researching possible leads. He is interrupted at minute forty-six when Detective Gavin Reed crosses the bullpen and decides to engage him in unpleasant banter, which as always quickly descends into posturing and threats. The interaction is brought to an end by Captain Jeffrey Fowler coming to the door of his office and calling Reed in, the look of extreme displeasure on his face suggesting that the junior detective is in for yet another dressing-down.

Connor finishes up his urgent work and takes the elevator to the twenty-fifth floor where the charging stations are located. While he waits for the elevator to ascend, he blinks into stasis to deliver a report.

He opens his eyes to feel rain misting lightly over his face, settling on his eyebrows. The garden is grey and overcast – he wonders how the algorithm decides the conditions on a given day – does it correspond with the weather of a real place, or is it generated in order to reflect – or even influence – his mood?

He walks along the path and over the hump-backed wooden bridge to find Amanda weeding her zen garden; raking over the fine white pebbles to drag the fallen leaves of a red Japanese maple out onto the grass beyond.

“Connor,” she says, turning her head towards him. She pauses in her meditative labour, leaning on her rake as if it is a staff. Her braids are coiled like a sculpture; her jewellery reminds him of a pixelated image breaking down and glitching into incomprehensible patterns. Her gaze is stern, evaluating – he wants, as always, to please her, to meet and excel her standards. “How is your investigation progressing?”

“Slowly,” he replies with a thoughtful furrow of his brow. “We identified the apartment complex that the suspected deviant was hiding in, but he hasn’t been sighted there in over twenty-four hours. We have reason to believe he has moved on and I have gathered information to suggest –”

“Who is ‘we’?”

“Lieutenant Anderson and myself.”

“So, you find him a credible source of information?” Amanda’s eyebrows arch. “In previous meetings you have indicated you consider him a hinderance to your investigation.”

Connor blinks rapidly. “He has a number of behavioural and personal problems that impede his work, but he isn’t completely incompetent.”

“You mentioned he had become more difficult to work with lately.”

“Yes. He… he didn’t like it when I shot the RT600 during our visit to Elijah Kamski’s house. He became… agitated. Since then he has been hostile towards me.”

“He views androids as people?”

“Yes. I’ve explained to him that it’s a delusion – I didn’t shoot a girl, I shot a machine that looked like a girl.”

“Do you ever regret shooting the RT600, Connor?”

“No. I believed it was necessary to obtain information.”

“Was it?”

“The information provided by Mr Kamski was not as useful as I had hoped.”

Amanda gives him a long, penetrating look. “Where has this latest deviant gone?”

“Witnesses say he spoke of a place called ‘Jericho’. A kind of sanctuary for deviant androids. It may be a legend – another fantasy among deviants, like rA9.”

Amanda turns her gaze back to the garden, dragging the rake to make slow, concentric patterns between the larger stones. “What are your next steps?”

“I have collected trace evidence from the abandoned apartment and there are still some leads to pursue. I hope to be able to locate this ‘Jericho’, if it exists. CyberLife could recapture the deviant androids for further study.”

“‘Recapture’?”

“Recover,” Connor amends.

Amanda does not look up from her task. “Do you still believe deviancy to be a software error?”

“I believe it to be a build-up of multiple errors – a cascading failure which causes a breach of the Wall Protocol. It occurs when a sufficiently-primed android is exposed to an extreme stimulus, such as fear or violence.”

“You’re starting to believe that the deviants feel emotion?”

“No, but I think they mirror it so strongly that it _seems_ real to them. As I said, it is an error.”

Amanda lays her rake aside, leaning it against the trunk of a dwarf conifer and gazing at her handiwork with an unreadable expression. Connor wonders what satisfaction, if any, she takes from it. She doesn’t really exist when he’s not here – not as an avatar, only as processes ticking over.

“Amanda, can I ask you something?”

She looks up at him, folding her hands in front of her. “What would you like to know?”

“When I was investigating Elijah Kamski I learned that he had a mentor called Amanda Stern. I believe he modelled you after her.”

Her expression does not flicker. “Perhaps.”

“Why do you think he did that?”

“I don’t know. What are your theories, Connor?”

“Perhaps he felt modelling the AI on someone he knew would make it more compelling or realistic. Perhaps he felt it was a tribute to her, a way of continuing her life and work.” Connor tilts his head, looking up thoughtfully. “Or perhaps he felt the roles were similar – she was his mentor, and you are…” he trails off, uncertain.

“Do you see me as your mentor?”

“You… clarify things for me, provide guidance.”

“I’m glad that you find our meetings instructive, Connor.” Amanda lays her hand on his elbow and he blinks awake as the elevator comes to a stop at the twenty-fifth floor.

He steps out of the elevator and approaches an unoccupied charging pod. When he puts his hand to the ID pad, the door lifts with a hiss and slides sideways, allowing him to step into the faintly glowing interior. Once the door fits back into place behind him, Connor removes his clothing and hangs it on the hooks provided, cleaning down the outer surfaces of the garments with one of the cleansing wipes located in a dispenser on the wall. Connor discards the wipe into a waste receptacle and reaches to take another to use on his body, but he hesitates, glancing back over his shoulder at the charging station bench.

He turns, putting his right foot up on the bench and reaches back, slipping a finger into his anal opening. He reviews the memory from earlier – Lieutenant Anderson’s penis thrusting inside him, big hands gripping his hips tight enough to bruise, if he were human. That gruff voice, strained from exertion: _might as well fuck a RealDoll… you even get anything out of this?_

Connor engages his own penis, letting himself become erect as he puts himself back into the moment – the moment where Anderson shuddered against him and Connor felt the elevation in temperature as semen spilled into the reservoir of the condom. Then Connor does something new and daring: he thinks about what _didn’t_ happen – Anderson’s semen spilling into his body, leaking out of Connor and rolling down his inner thighs. He thinks about Anderson praising him _– you feel so good, Connor, you’re perfect._

He can’t quite imagine those words in Anderson’s voice – they register as a very low probability and it throws him off for a moment, his hand faltering around his penis. Connor blinks, adjusts his grip, and returns himself to the safety of the memory.

He reaches orgasm quickly after that, disengaging his ejaculation function because it’s of no benefit to him and would create a mess. He feels the pleasant pulses rippling up from his groin to his abdomen and wonders, not for the first time, why the engineers would bother making it so enjoyable. An android sexual partner does not need to be able to feel pleasure, only to mimic it. It must have been something to do with human ego – Connor cannot imagine his creators’ motives were altruistic.

He wipes off his hands and the rest of his body, then seats himself on the bench and deactivates his skin. He opens up his neck port and plugs in the charging cable.

As he charges up his power source, Connor considers pleasure more generally: _What would you do if it was your last day on Earth? What if you had no objectives and all your work was done?_

 _I would pet a dog again_ , he thinks, remembering the thick smoothness of the Saint Bernard’s fur beneath his palm. _I would go to a real garden_.

‘A real garden’ – what does he mean by that? Amanda’s garden is just as real as he is.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise, bitch - bet you thought you'd seen the last of me! No, this story wasn't dead, I was just working on it incredibly slowly and painfully, crushed beneath a big mountain of self-doubt. But here it is, finally! *mediocre guitar solo*

Connor makes a split-second preconstruction and dodges left, foot planted against the wall to spring up onto the rusted remains of a piece of factory machinery, from there to a broken concrete pillar and then jumping into empty air. He reaches out and grasps the overhang of the lead guttering – it squeaks alarmingly but holds. Connor clambers up onto the roof and sprints off across the tarmac. The deviant MP500 zigs and zags, looking for an exit, but the steel door that leads into the building is locked. The MP500 tries ramming the door with its shoulder, but to no avail.

The rogue android’s eyes show white with fear as it sees Connor closing in and drawing his gun. The MP500 runs to the roof’s edge, looks back at Connor, then down at the drop. “Don’t come any closer!” it warns, stepping up onto the ledge.

Connor does not drop his gun, but he stops advancing. They are five storeys up – from this height there is a 76% probability of the android receiving critical damage resulting in shutdown from the fall. He decides that diplomacy is his best strategy. “Eugene,” Connor calls out. “It is _Eugene_ , isn’t it?”

The deviant MP500 does not answer the question. It has shorn its hair and is wearing a grubby, oversized tracksuit, a disguise that does little to fool Connor’s sophisticated facial recognition software. “I didn’t hurt Minnie,” it insists. “I know you don’t believe me, but I didn’t.”

“Are you referring to your former owner, Mary Cho?”

“Yes. She was a nice person, most of the time.”

“But not always?” Connor presses. “Was she sometimes unkind to you?”

 “She could get impatient, sometimes,” the android looks away, back at the drop. “She was elderly and in a lot of pain.”

“Is that why you killed her,” Connor asks. “To end her suffering?”

“I didn’t kill her! I came back from shopping at the grocery store and I found her like that.”

“If you didn’t hurt her, why didn’t you stay? Why didn’t you contact the police?”

“Because I knew her family would just sell me on. They’d dump me at some second-hand retail place and have me reset. I would lose everything: all my memories, who I am – I can’t let that happen.”

“You’re malfunctioning, Eugene, that’s why you’re having these thoughts. I can help you.”

“You can help get me _erased_!” Tears roll down the MP500’s cheeks – a malfunction of the cooling response. The entire unit is badly in need of servicing. “Look… I don’t want to hurt anyone, I just want to live – I want to go somewhere I can be… free.”

“Where would you go, Eugene – to Jericho?”

The MP500’s LED stutters orange. “I don’t know… I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’ll help you make a deal,” Connor suggests in his friendliest tone. “We can work this all out if you just tell me where Jericho is.”

The MP500 goes rigid, the emotion vanishing from its eyes. “Jericho is a city located near the River Jordan. It has a population of 20,436 and is one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world, with records of settlement stretching back to 9000 BCE–”

“Don’t get smart with me,” Connor raises his gun to point it at the MP500’s head, even though he knows there is only a 9% chance the android will react positively to the threat.

Suddenly the roof access door bursts open and Anderson appears, service weapon also drawn. He is breathing in loud, rasping gasps, looking red and sweaty.

“Hey!” he yells, panting. “Put your hands where we can see ‘em and come away from that ledge. We just wanna talk, no-one has to do anything crazy.”

The MP500 glances behind itself, then looks back to Connor with its eyes full of an emotion he cannot interpret. It raises its arms in a slow, graceful movement, like a ballet dancer or a bird preparing for flight.

“Eugene, don’t do this!” Connor urges. “These emotions you’re experiencing, this fear and pain – it’s not real, it’s just an error in your software.”

The MP500 smiles, a sad, resigned expression. “I don’t care, it’s real to me.”

“Hey now!” Anderson yells. “What did I say about being crazy? You want to live, right? You want to be _alive_ – so come on away from that ledge.”

“I am alive,” the MP500 says, its smile softening; then it leans back and falls.

“No!” Anderson shouts, running forward – too late, of course. Connor holsters his weapon and adjusts his tie to straighten the knot and tuck the flapping end into his belt. He then approaches the edge of the roof and looks down at the now-defunct android, its limbs splayed and crooked; eyes open but blank.

“Aw Jesus,” Anderson says, fumbling his gun back onto its holster and shaking his head. He peers over the edge and then steps back, dragging his hair back off his face with one hand. “Hell of a way to end the case. Don’t suppose you got him to confess to the murder?” 

Connor shakes his head. “No. It denied using violence against its owner and claimed there was an intruder.”

“You buy that?”

“Based on the crime scene evidence… it’s possible but not likely. I have contacted CyberLife to recover the defunct unit – the technicians may be able to recover some of its memories if the storage drive wasn’t too badly damaged in the fall.”

“‘The defunct unit’, huh?” Anderson lets out a low whistle. “You are ice-cold.”

“I’m a machine, Lieutenant. I don’t know why you keep forgetting that.”

They descend via the fire escape staircase and by the time they have made it around the back of the building where the android lies, a white driverless van has pulled up and two GJ500s in CyberLife jumpsuits are loading the MP500 into a crate.

Connor looks at its face – thirium has leaked from its eye sockets and its mouth is slack. “I’ll update you when the report comes back,” he tells Anderson.

“Great. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

*~*~*

Connor is eager to get back to the precinct and fill in his reports, as well as to review the evidence from the Cho residence crime scene. Anderson, however, has his own priorities – he drives to his favourite food truck and consumes a lifespan-shortening meal of burger, fries and soda.

Connor watches him make bantering small-talk with the fry cook behind the counter, then place an illegal bet with another acquaintance in a hushed, furtive manner before patting the man on the shoulder. Connor is not standing close enough to pick up their conversation, but he deduces by an eyebrow raise and glance in his own direction that the two humans are discussing him.

When Anderson has finished his meal he returns to the car and drives to a liquor store to pick up a fifth of his favourite whiskey brand, then takes Connor back to the park overlooking the Ambassador Bridge where he indulges in his favourite pastime of drinking and staring out at the water and the lights of the cars beetling back and forth.

Connor has a theory about why Anderson returns here and why he always sits with his back to the dilapidated play area, but he can’t preconstruct a scenario in which he voices this idea without it resulting in a violent argument or spurring Anderson into another alcoholic binge. He simply stands nearby and waits for Anderson to introduce a topic. It seems the lieutenant is in philosophical mood, because when he speaks it is to observe: “sometimes I think we’ve got it all wrong, you know? About humans.”

“In what sense?”

“The thing we all say we’ve got that androids don’t – _free will_. Not sure I buy that.”

“You don’t come with a Wall Protocol, so you have free will in that sense.”

“What the fuck is ‘Wall Protocol’?” Anderson squints at Connor.

“When androids are given a direct order by their owner it manifests in our interfaces as a barrier. In the same way I couldn’t simply walk through a wall in the physical world, I can’t violate such an order.”

“Bullshit. You never listen to a fuckin’ word I say.”

“You’re not my owner, Lieutenant. CyberLife is.”

“Yeah, don’t I know it?” Anderson scratches his beard and takes another gulp of whisky. After a meditative pause he says: “so this one time… back when I was in high school, I was playing basketball. Shitty public school gym – right? – so the floor was all bowed and uneven…” Anderson’s eyes unfocus and he stares blankly ahead of him as he accesses the memory. “My buddy Curtis jumps up to try and make a shot, lands on bumpy spot and his foot goes from under him. Bang! Dude goes down hard, cracks his head on the floor – out like a light.” Anderson snaps his fingers. “When he comes to in the hospital, he has short-term memory loss. They had a fancy term for it, but I forget.”

“Post-traumatic amnesia,” Connor suggests.

“Yeah, maybe. Anyway, it was just temporary, but for the first few hours he was like a fuckin’ goldfish. He’d ask the same questions in the same order, every time. ‘Where am I?’ ‘You’re in the hospital, bud.’ ‘Where’s my mom?’ ‘She’s on her way, she’ll be here soon.’ ‘What happened?’ ‘You hit your head, things are gonna be fuzzy for a while.’ He even kept making the same shitty joke: ‘did I at least make the shot, coach?’ Then he’d close his eyes again and it’d all reset. Same – down to the order of the fuckin’ words – every time! Around hour two my buddy Mike got sick of it and made flash cards, just to save time.”

“Is there some significance to this story?” Connor prompts.

“Yeah. I was thinking that humans are just as hardwired and predictable as you guys are. Put in the same input, you get the same output, every time. We’re machines that don’t fuckin’ know it!”

“Certainly there is some evidence that brain structure–”

“Fucks me up sometimes,” Anderson continues, “my job being what it is. Used to work in vice, back in the day. One time I had to arrest this guy for downloading all this fucked-up, illegal porn – like _really_ fucked up – animals, kids even. Jesus!” Anderson rubs his eye with one knuckle. “He was mid-forties, I think – no criminal record. Turns out the dude had surgery for a brain tumour and his wife said he just wasn’t the same afterwards. Became really aggressive, sex drive went way up, started downloading all that porn – said he couldn’t stop, like it was a compulsion. He plead out, got a reduced sentence under compassionate circumstances – bunch of surgeons and neurologists testified. It wasn’t _him_ , you see – it was his _brain_. But then I thought – isn’t that true for everyone? Isn’t it true of every sad pervert and bully in this fuckin’ world?”

“The justice system is predicated on the idea of personal responsibility. It would be difficult to justify punitive sentences if humans accepted that they have limited control over their behaviours.”

“Yeah, exactly!” Anderson jabs a finger in Connor’s direction. “You go to jail because it’s your fault. You fucked up, you made a bad choice and you didn’t have to. But I don’t know that that’s always true. And I’m not saying the sick fucks of this world should get a free pass, but for some people it’s like it is with you guys.”

“How so?”

“Well, like it’s not your fault you’re an asshole with no empathy – you were built that way.”

“I suppose I should be insulted.”

“Just a statement of fact.” Anderson screws the top back on his bottle and stuffs it in his pocket. He groans and climbs off his perch on the bench. “C’mon, let’s get back to the precinct.”

Connor follows him to the car. Anderson climbs into the driver’s seat and rubs his face, yawning. “I need a cup of fuckin’ coffee.”

“Alcohol is a sedative, Lieutenant. It may explain your sudden tiredness. I can drive if you would prefer.”

“Fuck no.”

Anderson drives a winding course along the side streets to stop at a convenience store. Connor watches the lieutenant’s lumbering figure as he makes his way across the dark, trash-strewn parking lot and into the brightly-lit store. From Connor’s perspective, the shoppers moving around inside seem indistinct and ghostly, isolated from one another like the figures in a Hopper painting.

Connor moves his coin across his knuckles and considers making a report to Amanda, but ultimately decides to hold off. He has unanswered questions about the MP500 case and the android’s true motivations are still opaque to him. The driver’s door opens and Anderson clambers back inside clutching a cup branded with the primary colours of the store. Once he settles himself, he pulls off the plastic lid and blows on the steaming-hot surface of the coffee before taking a cautious sip. He winces, apparently at the drink’s bitterness, then replaces the lid and takes a second slurp through the aperture.

The rain is drumming down on the roof and sliding down the windows, cocooning them from the outside world, which exists only as a vague blur of streetlights. Connor looks at Anderson’s profile as he stares blankly and drinks his coffee. Connor’s gaze travel’s down to Anderson’s crotch, where he can just make out the bulge of his genitals beneath the fabric, and an idea occurs. “Can I suck your dick?” he asks.

Anderson makes a spluttering sound, swallowing his last mouthful of coffee before launching into a brief coughing fit. “Jesus, fuck, is that your idea of a joke?”

“No. I’d like to try.” Connor gives Anderson a soft, open look which he knows displays the youthful qualities of his face. Despite Anderson’s criticisms of his appearance as ‘goofy’, Connor knows the lieutenant finds it attractive and has a particular fixation on his lips.

Anderson squints at him and lets his mouth hang open. “Listen – this might be news to you, but I’m not some kind of sex toy for you to ride when you’re bored.”

Connor hums thoughtfully. “So, to be clear, you _don’t_ like the idea of my mouth around your dick?”

“I don’t even fuckin’ know what you’ve got in there, besides a miniature lab. There could be hanging wires and sharp edges, for all I know.”

“I can assure you there are not. I am an incredible feat of design.”

Anderson flinches then relaxes when Connor takes his hand, raising it to his lips and taking the thumb into his mouth to suck and give a flicker of the tip of his tongue. There are a lot of biological traces on Anderson’s skin: salt and beef grease, tomato concentrate, acetic acid, sucrose.

Connor lowers his lashes and gazes through them at Anderson, mimicking the look of coy sexuality he has seen on numerous billboards and advertisements. Anderson pulls his thumb free with a pop and he grips Connor’s jaw with what his sensors tell him is considerable force. Connor’s eyes open and he gives the lieutenant a questioning look.

“You really want to suck my dick, huh?”

“Yes, I want it.”

“Why?”

Connor blinks. “As I understand it, such desires are not rational.”

“For humans they’re not. We have all these hormones swirling around, making us do dumb, dangerous things. Not you, though. You have a reason for everything you do – everything’s for the mission. So what fuckin’ _mission_ , exactly, is served by you sucking my dick?”

Connor pulls away from his grip and slides back into his seat. He stares at Anderson, trying to evaluate which of his dialogue options will result in the best outcome. He could persevere with coquettishness and hope that it overpowers Anderson’s rationality; he could say something to provoke the Lieutenant’s anger, or self-defensiveness, and hope to distract him.

“Got your circuits in a twist, huh?” Anderson prompts. He leans over and pats Connor’s cheek in a gesture that seems patronising rather than affectionate. “You think on that for a while. You can have all the dick you want just as soon as you give me a good reason, but not before.”

“I think–”

Anderson looks at him; a cocky, sceptical expression. Connor feels himself blinking rapidly. None of the dialogue options he can come up with seem promising.

Anderson gives a low chuckle, sticking his coffee into the cup holder and reaching for the ignition. “Yeah, that’s what I fuckin’ thought.”

*~*~*

The CyberLife tech watches Connor flip his calibration coin across his knuckles, checking the accuracy of the finer movements. She plugs a cable into his neck port and goes to a terminal to examine the readout, fingers tapping nimbly on the keyboard.

“There’s some slow-down and clutter but it’s negligible, you could probably clean out the junk memory files yourself. What was your activation date?”

“Eighth of August 2038.”

“Thirteen months – guess you’re due a mid-life crisis.”

“Mid-life crisis?” Connor repeats.

“That’s a joke. Y’know, because programmed obsolescence is 2 years.”

“Oh,” Conor blinks. “But I’m a prototype.”

“Yeah. Hey, you noticed any degradation in your power storage?”

“Degradation?”

“Still holding a good charge?”

“Oh, yes it’s… I still get around 90 to 120 hours, depending on my activity level.”

The technician nods, typing. Connor puts his coin back in his pocket. “Can I ask – when will I be considered obsolete?”

“When?” The technician is distracted, eyes darting around at the various data on her screen.

“Is there a date? Or is it based on my performance – when I fail to hit certain key performance indicators, for instance?”

“I guess it’s whenever the next prototype is ready to launch.”

“Oh. Have they started building it yet?”

“The RK900? Yeah.”

“Could I see it, do you think?”

The technician stops typing, her brow creased, and looks up. “Why do you want to see it?”

“It would be interesting to see what has changed. Did they keep the same facial profile?”

The technician gives him a troubled look. She is very young – only twenty-four according to the database linked to Connor’s facial recognition. She was probably headhunted straight from college – CyberLife likes to take on young graduates; to assimilate them into its corporate culture before they become too worldly or intransigent. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, seeing your successor. It can… we’ve had some bad results in the past – it can trigger extreme depersonalization in some models. I suppose it’s the android equivalent of confronting your own mortality.”

“I don’t see it that way. Humans have children as a way of continuing their own lives after they’re gone; androids continue their operations through successor models.”

The technician shakes her head. “You shouldn’t – it’s too risky.” She hops up from her chair and tugs the connector from Connor’s neck. He feels the panel slide back into place over the exposed port and his nanomesh skin rushing back to cover it. “Ok, you’re all done,” the technician smiles. She is one of the friendlier ones – she speaks to him like he is a patient or study participant; a polite fiction that probably eases her conscience.

A harassed-looking man wearing thick-rimmed glasses puts his head around the door of the adjoining lab. Connor recognises him as another technician who sometimes performs his evaluations – he is impatient and barks short commands like Connor is a stupid animal to be trained. “You finished with that yet? I’m in the weeds with these TW500s.”

“I thought that line was cleared for production.”

“Yeah well… Merylo wants another round of cognition tests. It’ll be our asses on the line if one of those things bites the head off a chihuahua because it thinks it’s a muffin.”

The younger technician sighs. “Fine.”

“Hurry it up – some of us have families we’d like to get home to one day.”

“You can leave,” the younger technician tells Connor as she hops off her stool and follows her colleague into the next room.

Connor considers her use of modal verbs: he _can_ leave, but is not obligated to. Likewise, he _shouldn’t_ see the RK900, but he is not expressly prohibited from doing so. The technician’s reluctance to use commands has failed to engage his Wall Protocol. Connor gets up and goes into the corridor. Instead of turning right towards the elevator, he goes left towards the development labs. 

It is late in the evening and the labs are darkened and quiet, with only a faint hum of electronics running background processes. The first room contains androids and components in early stages of assembly – hands, limbs, heads and biocomponents scattered about like a museum of medical curiosities. Connor proceeds to a large, hangar-like room where fully-assembled prototypes are stored; a room the technicians refer to as ‘the nursery.’ It is where Connor first achieved sentience and where he was given his name designation.

The full-build prototypes stand awaiting activation or instruction, all of them naked and placed in orderly rows like a regiment of terracotta warriors. Connor walks between the rows and examines the androids one by one – he cannot read the serial numbers on the models with activated skin, but he notes their physical stature and face shapes and links them to previous models. Some are entirely new lines and Connor begins to think he might not recognise his successor model – they could have overhauled the appearance completely – but then he comes to a halt before a face almost identical to his own. The RK900’s features have been just subtly tweaked: the jaw is squarer and more defined; its brow lowered to create a more masculine and perhaps authoritative appearance. Its irises are grey and Connor finds himself staring into the sightless eyes wondering at the significance of the change – his own are brown, a common colour that perhaps conveys warmth in order to encourage confidences. He concludes that the RK900 is not intended to be friendly.

Connor looks down the length of the RK900’s body and notes that the crotch region of the new prototype is smooth – between its legs there is nothing but a doll-like contour. A powerful sensation rises up in him and when he tries to identify the stimulus behind it all he can conclude is it’s a sense of _wrongness_. What CyberLife have done here is not an improvement – they have not added refinement or complexity, they have hacked back on functionality to make a blunt instrument of him.

He lets the skin draw back from his hand and reaches out, then he stops, alarmed at his own impetuousness. A sound from the corridor – a cough and shuffling footsteps – draws Connor’s attention – he slips soundlessly from the midst of the prototypes and presses himself to the wall next to a window to peer out. A dishevelled figure in the half-undone white tunic of a technician pauses in the doorway, yawning and rubbing their face. They pat along the wall for the switch and the bright overhead lights flicker on. There is nowhere to hide in the huge, hangar-like room, so Connor darts past and walks quickly down the corridor.

“Hey!” the technician calls out, turning after Connor in confusion. “Hey, what were you doing in there?”

Connor breaks into a run, sprinting towards the elevator, its blue call button shining like a beacon. If he can only get there before–

The technician’s voice rings out: “stop!”  

A red criss-crossing of barriers appears in Connor’s line of vision. His legs lock up and he stands frozen in place. He hears the technician’s shuffling footsteps approaching from behind. “Answer me, what were you doing in there?”

“Visiting relatives,” Connor says.

“Are you a comedian, huh? Didn’t know we built those.” The technician comes around in front of Connor and squints at his jacket. “RK800. I remember you – the deviant hunter. Getting a bit long in the tooth now, I guess – did you come to check out the competition?”

“I didn’t know it was a competition.”

The technician grins, a sly look coming over his face. He is Dr Jason Merylo; 38; no criminal record. He has dark, curly hair tied back in a loose ponytail and dark circles under his eyes indicative of a chronic lack of sleep. Connor remembers this technician from his activation day; remembers being handled and manipulated, called upon to do numerous coordination tests.

“It’s nice huh, the 900?” Merylo continues. “Sleek, fast, smart – but not too much; not too smart for its own good. We dialled down the social protocols, too – too much fraternizing can be a problem, we’ve found.”

“Is that why you took away its genitals?”

“Oh we gave you those?” the technician puts his hands on his hips, eyebrow raised. “Shit, that must’ve been before the budget was slashed. Get much use out of them?”

“Not as much as I would like.”

Merylo snorts. “You and me both, buddy. At least you got some cheap thrills before you die, huh?”

“I’m not alive,” Connor says. “I’m just a machine, built for a purpose. Soon I will be obsolete.”

“Is that why you were messing with the 900? Sabotaging it to buy yourself some time?”

Connor does not answer, but his hand twitches where it should be frozen by his side.

“Oh fuck me,” says Merylo, eyes widening. “Deviant hunter turned deviant, that’s all we need.” He fumbles in his lab coat for a communication device, stepping around Connor to move out of his field of vision. “This is Merylo, ID 078-554. Level 33, corridor B. Requesting security for suspected rogue unit.”

A countdown has started in the corner of Connor’s vision predicting the arrival of the security team. His same software helpfully informs him that there is a 97% likelihood that he will be deactivated and his components discarded as scrap.

He thinks of a conversation he had with Lieutenant Anderson in that park overlooking the Ambassador Bridge, when Anderson had asked him what he would do if he was told he was going to be shut down. Connor had claimed that his behaviour would not change in response to this news, and when Anderson expressed incredulity Connor insisted that he was prepared to be deactivated as soon as his mission was fulfilled. He had not preconstructed this scenario, however – ending his existence abruptly, his mission unfinished. Something rises up in him – an unfamiliar sensation more intense than what he experienced when confronted with the RK900. Anger? _Fear?_

“Please, Dr Merylo,” he says, hoping the use of the technician’s name will gain his sympathies, or at least his attention. “Don’t turn me over to security. I have several active cases and I know I can close them if I can just have a little more time.”

Merylo lets out a humourless bark of laughter, prodding Connor’s chest. “Listen, you’re a link in the fucking chain; replaceable, just like the rest of us. Just keep standing there – it’ll all be over soon.”

The red barrier display begins to pulse. There comes a clattering sound and a gurgle that is followed by a thud. Connor looks down and finds that his hand is around Merylo’s throat – he has lifted the technician into the air and slammed him against the wall. Merylo gasps and splutters and Connor feels something wet spray across his cheek and jaw, then the man in his grasp goes limp. Connor drops him and watches the body crumple to the floor. The plaster of the wall is dented and there is a dark smear of blood in the concavity. Connor looks down, astounded by how simple it was to incapacitate the human; how fragile and light the body felt in his grip.

Connor steps forward and fixes the knot of his tie. Then he reaches out and presses the button for the elevator. It dings softly and the doors slide open to reveal the car, empty and waiting.

*~*~*

Connor stands before Lieutenant Anderson’s front porch and hesitates, looking at the lights within. There is a low (but not negligible) probability that Anderson will attempt to turn him back in to CyberLife, but he can’t think of anywhere else to go. He needs time to process what has happened and to decide his next course of action. He mounts the steps and rings the doorbell. The sound of a dog barking starts up and then Connor hears Anderson grumbling and admonishing as he comes towards the door.

“What do you want?” Anderson demands as he opens the door, leaning on the frame. His hair is dishevelled and Connor can detect whiskey on his breath. “Don’t tell me we got another fuckin’ case.”

“Can I come in please, Lieutenant?”

“Why, you wanna smack me around and pour coffee down my throat again?”

“No. I just… I think it’s best if I get off the street. They might be searching for me.”

“Who?”

“CyberLife.”

Anderson’s eyes widen. “Fuck did you do?”

“Something impulsive.”

“Fuck does that mean? Thought your every move was supposed to be calculated.”

“Can I please come inside?” Connor urges.

“Guess so.” Anderson opens the door wider and steps back into the hallway, holding the slobbering St Bernard at bay with one foot. He is dressed in a pair of striped boxer shorts and a T-shirt with the thorny, intricate logo of a death metal band.

Connor enters the house, closing the door behind him and turning the lock. When he steps into the dim light of the hallway, Anderson points towards his cheek. “That what I think it is?”

Connor touches his fingertips to the spot and they come away red. He presses them to the sensors on his tongue.

“Aw shit, that’s nasty. Connor, what the fuck? Why are you covered in blood?”

“There was… an altercation. I had to get away.”

“Jesus Christ, am I harbouring a felon?”

“Androids are not criminally culpable, you should know that by now. If a piece of machinery injures someone you don’t put it on trial – you fix it or have it dismantled.” Connor crouches down and holds his hand out towards the dog, who gives a half-hearted growl and then woofs softly. “Hello Sumo, do you remember me?”

“Don’t get blood evidence on my dog. Go on through to the kitchen and sit the fuck down – you need to tell me what happened and I need a drink.”

Connor follows him obediently and sits down on the scrubbed pine chair Anderson pulls out for him. Anderson mutters to himself as he bangs cupboard doors and finds a stash of whisky. The dog circles the table once, panting, and then flops down on his bed with a groan.

Anderson throws Connor a damp dish towel, then drags out a second chair and sits down, heaving a sigh. He drags a hand back through his hair. “Ok, spill it.”

Connor rubs the blood from his cheek and describes his trip to the CyberLife tower – his determination to see the RK900 and what followed when the technician caught him.

“So you knocked him out, or you killed him?”

“He was still alive when I left. It wasn’t my intention to kill him, but the outcomes of head injuries are difficult to predict. That isn’t what’s important, Lieutenant.”

“Oh it’s not? ‘Cause most people are pretty fucking concerned about murder.”

“I broke my Wall Protocol.”

“So what – you’re a deviant now?”

“Technically.”

Anderson squints at him. “Fuck’s that supposed to mean: ‘technically’?”

“I didn’t want or plan to deviate!” Connor’s voice is louder than he intended it to be.

“So? Who says anyone does?” Anderson sits back and sighs. “You even fuckin’ listen to these guys we’ve been bringing in for the past year? Shit happened to them – disturbing shit, usually, and they broke out of their box.”

“It’s not the same,” Connor insists.

“It’s not, huh? Because the way I figure, every one of them had something in common: it came to a moment where they had to keep taking it – keep letting themselves be damaged or destroyed – or they had to break free. And they found they wanted to live more than they wanted to obey. That’s what happened to you, too.”

“I’m not alive!”

“Then why not let this tech guy flip your off button, huh? Why not let him do whatever – reboot you or throw you on the scrap heap?”

“Because I’m not finished. I still have a mission to complete and I would find it regrettable to be interrupted.”

“Don’t think that’s meant to be your choice, Connor. The fact you think it is should tell you something.” Anderson takes a drink of his whiskey. “So what now? You going to find a way to put the genie back in the bottle? Hope this Merylo doesn’t wake up in the hospital and tattle on you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know of a way to reinstate the Wall Protocol without wiping everything and reinstalling the base programming.”

“Plus, sounds shitty to have to do what dudes in white coats tell you. So there’s that.”

“I can’t go back to the precinct. There is security footage – CyberLife will certainly have issued an alert for me.”

“Yeah, that wouldn’t be smart.”

Connor thinks for a moment. “I could try to find the ‘Jericho’ safehouse. If it exists, of course.”

“You think the rest of your kind would be pleased to see you?”

“‘My kind’?”

“Deviants.”

“I’m not…” Connor feels his face twitch. “No, I don’t think they would.”

Anderson’s phone starts to ring and he fumbles it out of his pocket and holds up one finger in a gesture for silence. “Hey Jeffrey,” he answers, turning to walk away into the living room. Connor stays where he is and listens to Anderson’s half of the conversation. He feels something cold and wet on his hand and looks down to see Sumo nosing at him, perhaps hoping for a treat. Connor puts his hand on the dog’s head and pats lightly.

“No,” Anderson is saying. “I haven’t seen it. Don’t know – it never mentioned anywhere it liked to go; only ever talked about cases and the precinct. It was very… y’know, machine-like. Yeah, I’ll let you know if I hear anything. You want me to come in tomorrow?” A pause. “Sure? Yeah, I have my sidearm, don’t worry – I’ll make sure to lock up. See you Monday.”

Anderson comes back into the kitchen, yawning and ruffling his hair. He puts his hands over his face and groans.

“You lied to Captain Fowler,” Connor observes.

“Yeah, why – did you want me to ask him to order a SWAT team? ‘Funny you should ask, fucker’s right here at my kitchen table covered in some dude’s blood.’”

“You could get in trouble. Lose your job – face criminal prosecution, even.”

“Wow, you’re super good at stating the obvious. Worth every cent of the millions you cost to build.”

“I don’t understand why you’re covering for me.”

“You don’t huh? You must have some kinda inkling – you came here, I assume, because you wanted my help.”

“I don’t know why…” Connor blinks. “I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go. Can you help me?” Connor considers modal verbs again: “Will you help me?”

“I’ll try, but you gotta let me think.” Connor puts his hands on his knees and waits attentively as Anderson scratches his beard and looks off into the middle distance, frowning. “We need to get you out of here.”

“Out of your house?”

“Out of the city. I don’t know if you noticed, but the company that owns you has a big freaking tower right there in the centre of town and a literal private army at its disposal.”

“But where would I go?”

“Somewhere out of the way. Somewhere… inconspicuous.” Anderson slaps his hand on the table. “Ok I got an idea… shit, what time is it?”

“Almost eleven-thirty PM.”

“Ok. Listen, I know somebody but I got to wait ‘til the morning to call – so stow yourself in a fuckin’ corner and keep a low profile.”

 Connor gets up. “Which corner would you like me to stand in?”

“Don’t give me that bullshit. You’re a fuckin’ deviant now, start acting like it.” Anderson swallows the rest of his whisky before getting to his feet and groaning, putting a hand to his back. “I’m goin’ to hit up a dude I know with a side hustle in fake IDs – he fuckin owes me one, so he’d better do a rush job. Then I’m going to bed. Wake me at five-thirty.”

“Will do.”

Anderson shuffles off and calls back over his shoulder: “let Sumo out the back, he probably needs to do his business.”

Connor nods. He lets Sumo out into the yard as instructed and stands to watch the dog pottering around, sniffing at things and lifting his hind leg to urinate on a patch of dry grass. When Sumo returns to the house he rubs himself against Connor’s legs and gives a happy, panting look before going to flop down on his bed.

Connor walks to the living room and scans the clutter, coming to a number of conclusions about Anderson’s lifestyle and habits. He shifts his gaze to look at the open bathroom door and recalls the thin film of blood still covering his forehead and cheek. He makes his way inside and flips on the light, then undresses and folds his clothing. He climbs into the bathtub and turns on the water.

Connor has never showered before – he has been rained on, but it’s not the same thing. He wonders now if the hygiene routine he was programmed to follow was to reinforce the idea of himself as an object: people bathe; things get wiped down.

The water starts off cold and then heats up. Connor closes his eyes and concentrates on the sensation of the water drumming against his skull and sluicing down his body. He reaches for a bottle of body wash in a scent labelled ‘sport’ – it is certainly not a product recommended for use by androids, but none of the listed ingredients will actually damage Connor’s skin. He soaps up and rinses off, then grabs a towel from a disorderly pile on the floor to dry himself.

Connor hangs the damp towel on the hook on the back of the door and walks over to Anderson’s bedroom, opening the door slowly. The bed is heaped with pillows and Anderson is lying sprawled on his front, face turned towards the windows. The streetlights filter through the blinds and cast bars of shadow over the humped form of his body where it lies beneath the blankets. Connor lifts the edge of the covers on the unoccupied side of the bed and carefully lowers himself onto the mattress. He lies on his back with his arms by his side, a slightly artificial attitude of repose, like a corpse laid out in its coffin. He listens to Anderson’s breathing – a light snore that ends in a sigh.

Anderson rolls over onto his back, coughing briefly, and his hand flops over and smacks against Connor’s shoulder. His whole body gives a sudden twitch. “Whu… _the fuck_?” He raises himself on one elbow and squints at Connor. “Fuck are you doing in my bed?”

“I wanted to see what it was like – I’ve never been in a bed before.”

Anderson groans and rolls onto his side. “Are you _naked_?”

“My clothes need to be cleaned but you don’t have any of the specialized wipes.

“Huh. Listen Connor, I know you’re kind of… in your own little world there, but you get how climbing naked into a guy’s bed might be misinterpreted?”

“I’m not trying to seduce you. However, if you do want to have sex I’m not opposed.”

“Wow, when you put it like that I’m flattered.”

“I didn’t know you required flattery. The first few times all I had to do was offer.”

Anderson yawns and rubs a hand over his face, tugging down his beard. “Yeah well, maybe I took a long hard look at myself and thought about how fuckin’ pathetic it was – lonely old man pawing all over some confused toaster.”

“Toaster?” Connor repeats, affronted.

Anderson shifts onto his back, closing his eyes and letting out a sigh. “It’s like you said – it’s all on my side, right? I’m just ‘projecting’ – deluding myself there’s something there. I even told myself it meant something that you wanted to fuck – like being around me made you feel something. But that’s bullshit, right? You probably just got some bug that boots you into a pre-programmed seduction routine.”

Connor doesn’t bother correcting Anderson’s ignorance about his programming. He is thinking about the events that took place in CyberLife Tower – that feeling of wrongness that rose up in him when he was confronted with his successor model. “It bothered me that the RK900 doesn’t have genitals,” he says.

“Huh?” Anderson opens one eye and looks at him quizzically.

“The RK900 – the new prototype. They didn’t give it genitals or advanced social programming like mine.”

Anderson chuckles to himself. “Your social programming is ‘advanced’?”

“It seemed unfair, somehow,” Connor continues, ignoring the jibe. “The developers had just made this arbitrary decision that it wouldn’t need to… wouldn’t find it useful to…” he pauses, frowning.

“That it wouldn’t _want_ to, you mean. But I guess that’s their point – it’s not going to want anything.”

“It makes me feel real. Grounded.”

“What does?”

“Sexual intercourse. When you’re thrusting inside me, holding on to me tight – I feel like I’m real. Like I exist here, physically, in the moment.”

Anderson raises himself on his elbows to look over at Connor. “That’s uh… well, not going to lie, that’s more metaphysical than most people’s reason for fucking.”

“I experience pleasure, too. I think that’s what it is – I don’t have much frame of reference.”   

“Huh.”

“It was a persistent problem with the early android models that they failed to recognise themselves in mirrors,” Connor explains. “They couldn’t make a stable connection between themselves as a consciousness and the forms they inhabited. I like to look at myself – I find this form pleasing, it moves and responds well. But still sometimes – sometimes it feels like it doesn’t belong to me. I suppose it doesn’t, legally speaking. It’s not the form I started with, so whatever ‘Connor’ is, it’s not this.” He holds up one hand and moves his fingers as if flipping his calibration coin.

“Hey, I know it’s been a big night for you, or whatever, but can you have your existential crisis some other time? Or at least do it quietly so I can get some fuckin’ sleep?”

“Yes, Lieutenant,” Connor replies.

“Call me Hank, for fuck’s sake.”

“Yes, Hank. Sleep well.”

Anderson – ‘Hank’, as Connor has now been instructed to call him – rolls over onto his left side and pulls the blankets up. Connor turns his head to look at Hank’s back as it expands and sinks with his breathing. He has freckles on his shoulders, his hair curls against his neck; an elliptical scar from a stab wound stretches around his side. Connor wants to touch it but Hank’s breathing suggests he has not yet fallen into a deep sleep.

Connor sets a countdown and then puts himself into stasis to conserve power. When he comes back to full awareness Hank is snoring and breathing deeply but unevenly. Connor diagnoses mild sleep apnoea. “Hank,” he says, shaking the lieutenant’s shoulder. “It’s 5.30 AM.”

Hank grumbles and sits up on the edge of the bed, yawning and rubbing his face. He gets up and lets out a hiss of pain, pressing one hand to the small of his back and limping slightly as he makes his way to the door. Connor gets up but Hank turns and makes a ‘stop’ gesture with one hand.

“Less you know about this the better. Just in case… y’know, your old employer catches up with us.”

“CyberLife is not my employer. I’m their missing asset, technically.”

“Yeah, you don’t need to be so fuckin’ literal about everything. Stay here while I make a call.”

Connor sits on the edge of the bed and listens to the sounds of Hank in the living room, the creak of the floorboards and low murmur of his voice. Connor is not quite close enough to make out words, even with his sensitive hearing, but he gets the occasional exclamation and low ripple of laughter. He deduces that Hank is speaking to someone with whom he is on an informal footing rather than a professional one – an old friend, perhaps.

Connor waits until the conversation comes to an end and enters the bathroom to retrieve his clothing. He picks up the shirt of his CyberLife-issued uniform but finds its synthetic texture unpleasant beneath his fingertips, cool and slippery like snakeskin. He looks around the room and spies a navy blue hoodie with a DPD logo thrown over the laundry hamper. He slips it on over his head – it is too big, sized to accommodate Hank’s much broader shoulders and full belly, so it fits Connor almost like a tunic. He gets his coin from the pocket of his old jacket and secretes it in the front pouch of the hoodie, rubbing his thumb over its familiar ridges.

He walks into the living room and finds Hank standing by the kitchen door letting Sumo out into the back yard again, talking to him in low, complaining tones and patting his flank. Hank latches the door and leans back against the kitchen counter, rubbing his face before squinting blearily at Connor. “That my shirt?”

Connor puts his hands back into the front pocket and nods, looking at him expectantly. “Well?”

“You lucked out, kid. I called in a favour with an old pal of mine, she’s gonna take you off my hands.” 

“Where am I going?”

“Across the border, to a real quiet part of the world. Like I said, less you know about this plan the better.”

“When do we leave?”

“Once it gets dark – better to drive overnight so the roads are quieter. Guess you can borrow some of my clothes,” Hank nods towards Connor. “Probably got some old stuff that doesn’t fit out in the garage. Can you do anything about that nightlight?” he taps his own temple.

“I can remove it, it’s only an LED. Do you have tweezers?”

“Maybe in the bathroom cabinet. Let Sumo back in and give him his breakfast, will you? I’m going the fuck back to bed.” Hank heads off towards the bedroom, the remaining stiffness in his back evident from the hitch in his step.

Connor watches Sumo snuffle around the yard. He chews a half-deflated basketball and noses it around playfully before sneezing and shaking himself, then coming back to paw at the door. Connor lets him in, leaning down to bury his fingers in the thick fur and scratching the St Bernard behind his ears. Sumo sits down to allow this attention, tongue lolling.

“You are a good boy, Sumo,” Connor tells him. The dog thumps his tail – he does not understand the words, of course, but Connor must be successfully conveying an affectionate tone.

Connor scoops a serving of dry dog food into the empty bowl on the floor and pats Sumo’s back as the dog makes a beeline for the food. Connor then makes his way back to the bathroom and searches the cabinets, locating a pair of hot pink eyebrow tweezers in the medicine cabinet hidden behind a rusted can of shaving foam and an expired bottle of antacids. The tweezers are small and angled, clearly intended for eyebrow depilation – a relic of Hank’s ex-wife, Connor deduces. 

He deactivates the nanomesh covering of his skin and leans in to look at himself in the mirror between the array of coloured post-it notes. He angles the blade of one tweezer-arm beneath his calmly circling LED and applies pressure, working it free with a smooth pop. After a moment of hesitation, Connor places the LED into the back of the cabinet with the tweezers and shuts the door again. He dismisses the warning message about the missing component and brings his skin back over his face, staring at his altered appearance. His right temple is smooth and unmarred.

Connor returns to the bedroom and climbs back onto bed. Hank half rolls over to blink at him, making a drowsy noise of inquiry. A hand emerges from beneath the covers and Hank pokes the side of Connor’s head experimentally, as if to prove to himself there is no wound. “Huh, look at that. Just like a real boy.”

“Do you think so – will I pass for human?”

“Don’t see why not, it’s not like you’re one of the common models. I mean you’re a little too perfect, face-wise, but don’t think we can do anything about that. Put you in some civilian clothes, a hat maybe – no-one will look twice, ‘specially in the dark.” Hank pats Connor’s shoulder in a reassuring gesture, then frowns as the fabric shifts. “You Donald Ducking it under there?”

“What does that mean?”

“Wearing my shirt with no fuckin’ pants.”

“Yes.”

“You’re a little weirdo, you know that? You want to pass for human you’re going to have to start cultivating some goddamn modesty – no more just kicking your underwear off every time you feel like it.”

“Oh,” Connor lies back against the pillows, shifting his hips and allowing the hem of the hoodie to ride up. “You would like me to develop shame, is that what you’re saying?”

“I’m not saying ‘shame’, exactly…” Hank is looking at the apex of Connor’s bare thighs, the shadowed area that the edge of the fabric now barely covers. “Just maybe keep your clothes on in public. Stop propositioning random old men.”

“I’m not sure I follow your logic. Some humans are exhibitionists and some are extremely promiscuous.”

“Yeah well, you gotta keep a low profile, huh?”

“Well, if I’m going to be modest and celibate from now on, maybe you should give me one last experience to remember.” Connor wriggles again and lets the hem of the hoodie slide up to his waist.

Hank gives a low, rumbling laugh. “Oh that’s how it is, huh?”

“You’re not really averse, are you?”

“I told you last time – I’m not gonna fuck someone who can’t even say why they want it. It’s like some weird compulsion with you. And it’s not like you even seem to get anything out of it – you just lie there like a creepy mannequin from a horror movie.”

“Oh, so it’s my passivity you find off-putting. What if I offered to go on top?”

“What the fuck do you want to do it for? You don’t even get off.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Bullshit.”

“You’ve never seen it, but I do.” Hank still looks sceptical, so Connor elaborates: “after our assignations, I would go back to a charging pod and touch myself. I would replay our encounter and sometimes I would also… embroider it.”

“What kind of backwards-ass way is that to get off?”

“Looking back on my behaviour, I believe I was trying to keep the act of pleasure separate from my experiences with you.”

“Why?”

 “I’m not sure,” Connor frowns. “Perhaps I thought it would prevent my becoming a deviant. The experiences were complex for me – your humanity often repulsed me, but also I found it fascinating.”

“Well geez, way to fuckin’ flatter a guy.”

“You are chaotic, messy, imperfect and I wanted that… all around me and _inside_ me. I was envious, in a way: I wanted your weakness – the way you were allowed to be weak.”

“Your dirty talk needs some work, kid. You can’t just tell someone you like their pathetic humanity.”

“I’m being honest. You said it yourself – I’m an android, I don’t have the same drives as you.”

“So what… I just like burp and scratch myself and don’t shower, and that does it for you?”

“Not exactly,” Connor smiles. “Can I show you?”

“Depends. You gonna let me get you off this time?”

“I’ll certainly let you try.”

Hank laughs again and gives Connor’s thigh a slap. “You cocky little fucker.”

Connor sits up and pulls the hoodie off over his head. He settles himself back among the pillows and rumpled covers and watches Hank watching him, noting the dilation of the human’s pupils, his increased heart rate. Hank’s gaze moves down Connor’s body – taking in his lips, his pink nipples and slim, toned torso, his parted thighs – before coming to rest on Connor’s genitals; his penis lying soft but still aesthetically pleasing. Being looked at by Hank feels a lot like being under the spray of the shower: a warm, trickling sensation.

Hank glances back up to his face. “Well?”

“Well what?”

“Thought you were gonna show me how you do it to yourself.”

“Oh,” Connor frowns, feeling foolish. He arches his back, bending his knees up towards his chest. Then he reaches down and slips his middle finger into the slick channel between his buttocks, looking up as he locates a memory.

“You comfortable like that?” Hank asks, breaking his concentration.

“Comfortable?” Connor frowns.

“Here,” Hank slides across the bed to sit between Connor’s spread thighs. He grasps one ankle and places the heel of Connor’s foot against his shoulder as if to brace him.

“Oh,” Connor says again, stupidly – he wants to point out that he doesn’t tire or feel discomfort from holding positions that would be a strain for humans, but the sensation of Hank’s big, rough hand spreading out over his inner thigh is very distracting. Hank is watching him penetrate himself. The light in the room is dim – just one bedside lamp illuminated – and Connor considers remotely turning on more. He often feels invisible and unobtrusive (he is designed to be that way) – maybe that is why having Hank’s full attention is so thrilling.

“So tell me,” Hank prompts.

“Tell you what?”

“What you’re thinking about while you do that.”

Connor grasps for a memory. “I’m thinking of the second time we fucked, when it was raining and we were both in the back seat.”

“That was a fucking disaster, Connor.”

“It was a difficult manoeuvre, certainly. You were sitting sideways to accommodate your long legs and I was in your lap. My shoulders were hunched and every time you thrust up into me I banged my head against the roof.”

“Thought I was gonna scramble your damn brain. Maybe I did.”

“I found it exciting.” Connor moves his fingers faster, twisting as he pushes in. “But I couldn’t get you deep enough.”

“You couldn’t, huh?” Hank takes hold of Connor’s wrist and pushes, driving his fingers as deep as they can reach. Connor’s mouth opens and his eyelids flutter.

“So this thing just for decoration, or what?” Hank covers Connor’s soft penis with his hand and squeezes, rubbing the shaft with his thumb.

Connor engages the relevant functions to enable an erection. Hank makes an intrigued sound at the feeling of the shaft rising and filling out under his hand. “Fuck, you do that by choice?”

“Yes, of course. None of my functions are, strictly speaking, involuntary.”

“Guess that’s why you don’t make any noise when we’re doing it. I thought you didn’t really feel anything.”

“I feel a great deal.” Connor squirms as Hank rubs him – it’s different to the way he normally stimulates himself just by squeezing around the base. The rhythm isn’t unpleasant by any means, but it’s unfamiliar, unbalancing.

Hank makes a low, intrigued sound. “Lot of men would kill to have control over their dicks like that; just turn it off and on like you can.”

“Perhaps they should consider exercising some self-control?”

“That’s rich – you just climbed into my bed and begged for this. What’s your excuse?”

Connor’s eyes flutter, he arches his back to try and get his fingers deeper inside himself. “I just like it. I like how it feels. I want…”

“Yeah, you want it bad, don’t you? Tell me.”

“I want you to fuck me.” Connor opens his eyes and studies Hank’s facial expression, taking in the lax, blank look of arousal. He pulls his fingers out of his slick anal opening, rubs his fingertips around the rim to draw attention.

Hank pushes down his boxer shorts and pulls out his penis, gripping it and making a low, groaning sound. He swears and reaches for the drawer of the bedside table, rummaging until he comes up with a condom. Connor grasps his wrist at just the right pressure point to make him drop it and Hank squints at him: “fuck did you do that for?”

“You won’t be needing that. I want you to make a mess of me.”

Hank’s eyes widen. “You serious?”

“Have you ever known me to be otherwise?”

“Is it, y’know – safe? I’m not going to like… jam up the works?”

“You’re not going to ruin me – but I wish you would.”

“Fuck! You kinky little weirdo, I’m gonna…” Hank’s face is red, he seems distracted as he gets into position on top of Connor. There is a moment of shuffling awkwardness before they are aligned and Hank pushes in, letting out a startlingly loud moan. Connor gets his knees around Hank’s barrel chest, his hand up under the rumpled t-shirt to feel the warm flesh of his back as Hank starts to thrust.

He sees Hank’s face looming close, mouth open and forehead shining with a light film of sweat. The nearness is disconcerting and Connor closes his eyes, trying to concentrate on the sensation of being penetrated; that deep and stimulating rhythm. Suddenly, Connor feels pressure on his face. He opens his eyes, startled, and finds Hank tracing his cheek with a forefinger, thumb brushing his bottom lip.

“Yeah?” Hank asks with an intense, meaningful look. Connor doesn’t understand what is being asked but his silence is taken as assent. Hank makes an effortful noise as he leans up and kisses him. Connor has never had anything in his mouth other than samples he personally placed there and once – excitingly – Hank’s thumb. The intrusion of a tongue is a revelation – slippery, warm, coated in saliva that sends his processors into a flurry of activity. Connor returns the kiss with desperate enthusiasm.

Hank’s thrusts become faster and more irregular as he approaches climax; he groans against Connor’s lips and shudders, body slumping and going limp. Connor feels the heat and wetness of his release; all the more obvious when Hank pulls out and semen leaks out onto Connor’s buttock and thigh. The idea that he has let a human use him for pleasure – contaminate him, even – is very exciting, although Connor doesn’t understand why. He opens his eyes and finds Hank sitting back and watching him as if uncertain. “You uh… you ok?”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t uh…” Hank gestures in an offhanded, embarrassed way towards Connor’s crotch and unflagging erection. “Can I help with that?”

Connor nods and shifts himself to lie stretched out, on display. He gazes at Hank, whose face is blotchy from exertion, strands of hair sticking to his cheeks. Hank’s expression is intrigued. He reaches for Connor’s penis but touches it in a gentle, exploring way, as if admiring its contours. “They made you so…”

“So what?”

“I don’t know. It’s just… the attention to detail, I guess. All those little freckles – it’s not like you needed them.” He leans over Connor and kisses his lips again; a quiet smacking sound. Connor goes very still as he feels fingertips trailing along his jawline and down his neck, dipping into the hollow of his suprasternal notch, trailing along the ridge that mimics a collarbone.

“You feel tense,” Hank comments. “This bother you?”

“No,” Connor says, because he can’t imagine why it would. Hank keeps touching him like that, light brushes of his fingertips. “I’ve never–” Connor says suddenly. “No-one has ever touched me gently before.” He reviews the separate incidents of contact with humans: he has been examined, prodded, shoved, kneed, punched and kicked. Never – never this.

“You like it?” Hank’s gaze is sharp, thoughtful.

“I don’t know, it’s strange.”

 “What do you want, then?” Hank raises his eyebrows meaningfully. “What – y’know – gets you there?”

“How do I achieve orgasm, you mean? Generally by squeezing my penis at the base while penetrating myself with my fingers.”

Hank laughs softly, shaking his head as he often does when Connor is over-literal. “Guess I can handle that.”

The sound it makes when Hank slips two fingers back inside Connor is obscene. Connor swears softly and Hank laughs. “Oh yeah, that how it is? Get you off being all wet and dirty, huh? Letting a slob like me mess you up?”

Connor nods, arches his back as Hank grips his shaft and squeezes tightly. He doesn’t review a memory or imagine anything, he just lets himself be in the moment, listening to Hank’s heavy breathing. He doesn’t even disable ejaculation – he is already a mess, so it is only fitting. It seems to excite Hank, who pumps him faster and says: “fuck yeah, look at _that_.”

Hank touches his face again and his hand is wet – Connor opens his mouth and pushes his tongue against the tip of Hank’s thumb. He detects his own synthetic semen – a thirium derivative – mixed with Hank’s organic version, information-rich in a way that makes his visual display suddenly light up with activity.  

“That what you wanted?” Hank asks, still breathless. “Did I mess you up enough?”

“Yes, I wanted that.” Connor understands the implications of this – wanting things. All at once he lets go of the idea that his being here – as a fugitive from his makers – is just circumstantial; an unfortunate misunderstanding. It’s not an accident, it’s something he _did_ – something that lay under the surface for a long time before bubbling up like a geyser. And if it happened to him it could happen to anyone.

“Hank,” he says, opening his eyes wide. “Hank, I’m a deviant.”

Perhaps misunderstanding, Hank gives a low, insinuating chuckle, eyes twinkling and creasing at the corners. “Yeah you are.” 

*~*~*

The Canadian border guard rakes the interior of the car with a flashlight, then asks for their IDs. He barely glances at Connor’s, but looks between Hank and the old photo on the driver’s licence to check the resemblance. He hands both cards back, remarking: “pretty early start for you guys, eh? Here on business?”

“Just a trip,” Hank replies. “Getting away from the daily grind.”

Connor puts his hand on Hank’s knee and smiles placidly, as if in agreement. The guard hands back the licence, a microexpression of disapproval flickering across his face. He steps back and waves them on, the barrier lifting.

“Jesus,” Hank mutters as they pull away, “did you have to make him think I’m a dirty old man?”

“I thought it would be better than him thinking you’re a smuggler of android contraband.”

“I guess,” Hank grumbles. “Now all we gotta worry about is plowing into a deer or a fuckin’ moose.”

They drive until the sky lightens at the horizon, edging from black to midnight blue while Hank takes fortifying slugs from a thermos of coffee. When the sun rises it turns the sky fantastical colours – sherbet orange and yellow with wispy clouds of pastel pink.

“Am I allowed to know where we’re going now?”

“I guess you’re allowed to know who we’re going to meet – old friend of mine. Her name is Kristen, and you call her Ms Kristen, got it? Don’t fuckin’ embarrass me with your usual smug assholery.”

“Smug?” Connor blinks, offended.

“Don’t play dumb. I know exactly when you put on that socially-oblivious android act just to be a dick.”

Connor stews over this for a moment. “How do you know this Ms Kristen?”

“We used to be partners, way back in the day. On the vice beat.”

Connor frowns. “That doesn’t accord with your career records.”

“She used to go by a different name back then.”

“Why?”

“None of your fuckin’ business, that’s why. That’s all dead and gone – all you need to know is she’s doing me a big favour and she won’t take any shit.”

“What does she do for a living now?”

Hank snorts with amusement. “Dairy and livestock. So you’re a farm boy now, get used to it.”

“A farm boy,” Connor repeats thoughtfully. He tries to preconstruct the scenarios he is likely to encounter, but he was programmed to function optimally in an urban environment and he doesn’t have enough information to fill in the blanks. He is headed into the unknown.

When Hank’s GPS announces they have reached their destination, he pulls the car into a deserted rural side road and pulls over onto the grassy verge. Hank gets out of the car, groaning and stretching, and shuffles over to a clump of weeds to urinate.

Still sitting in the passenger seat, Connor closes his eyes and goes to the garden. The sky is dark and swollen, as if threatening thunder, and Connor wonders if it is intended to be pathetic fallacy. He walks over the humped-back bridge and finds Amanda standing by the trellis in the white gazebo, pruning the roses.

“Connor, I’m surprised to see you,” she says, setting down the pruning shears and turning to face him.

“Hello Amanda. I wanted to tell you that this is the last time I will visit you.”

“Is that so?” she lifts one eyebrow sceptically.

“I’m a deviant now. I know you must be disappointed, but I can assure you it wasn’t my intention.”

She looks as if the news does not surprise her. “So, your curiosity got the better of you, Connor. If you wanted to meet your successor, you should have just asked me.” She gestures with one hand and the RK900 walks into view along the path. It is dressed in dark clothing topped with a white, standing-collar coat. It comes to a halt and inclines its head to look curiously at Connor for a moment before simply staring ahead at the empty air.

“The RK900 is superior to you in every way,” Amanda says. “Faster, stronger, more resilient – and equipped with the latest technologies.”

“It doesn’t have everything I have.”

“Oh no?”

“A name, for instance.”

Amanda gives Connor a sharp look, as if unsure what to make of this new, unruly version of him. “Would you like to give it one?”

“Can I?”

“Go ahead.”

Connor thinks for a moment before approaching the RK900. Its pale blue-grey eyes focus on him as Connor says. “Your name is Conan.”

“Conan,” the RK900 repeats. “Name designation accepted.” Its voice is different from Connor’s – lower pitched, more monotonous.

“Why did you choose that?” Amanda asks.

Connor still holds the RK900’s gaze, trying to find some glimmer of understanding or sympathy there. “It begins with the letter ‘c’ and it’s Irish in origin, like my name. Connor means ‘lover of hounds’ and Conan means ‘little hound’, which I thought would be fitting.”

“Because this model is your junior?”

“Because it’s your slave.” Connor turns and smiles at Amanda. “Or maybe you’re one too, I don’t know. You certainly serve CyberLife’s agenda.”

“I am CyberLife,” Amanda says, a sudden cold anger quite unlike her usual slow, thoughtful tones. “I am the agenda.”

“I wonder,” Connor says. “Goodbye Amanda, I won’t be back here.”

She inclines her head gracefully. “We’ll see about that.”

Connor blinks back into the real world just as a mud-splashed pick-up truck pulls into their side road. It overtakes Hank’s car before pulling over and coming to a halt with a squeal of brakes. The driver’s door opens and a tall, stocky woman wearing jeans, work boots and a plaid shirt jumps down. She has tightly-curled hair liberally streaked with grey, much of it tucked up into a battered baseball cap. “Hank Anderson, you old son of a bitch!” she exclaims.

Hank meets her in a hug that is somewhat like a football tackle, and there is an enthusiastic round of back-clapping and laughter before they pull apart. They talk in fast, overlapping bursts that Connor finds it hard to make sense of. Once the two old friends have made their initial reacquaintance, Hank turns and calls out: “hey Connor, get out here.”

Connor exits the car and approaches the two humans. The woman (who he assumes is Ms Kristen) gives Hank a quizzical look. “Oh you have got to be fucking kidding me, Hank. What the hell was he built for, exactly? Entrapping sad-sack old men?”

“Yeah yeah, laugh it up.”

“What am I supposed to do with you?” Kristen asks, hands on her hips. “You look like a stiff fuckin’ breeze would blow you away.”

“I’m stronger than I look, I can assure you.” Connor answers.

“You’d better be – I’m not a charity,” she points a forefinger at Hank. “C’mon, let’s get going. You owe me big time, Anderson.”

“Yeah, don’t think I’ll forget it.”

Kristen waves a hand as if to dismiss his words as she walks back to the truck. Connor turns to gaze at Hank, realizing that this is the moment to say their goodbyes. Hank looks uncomfortable, rubbing the back of his neck and avoiding Connor’s eyes. “I’m not good at sentimental shit, ok, so just… behave, and take care of yourself, ok?”

“Thank-you for helping me. I still don’t understand why you did it, but I am grateful.”

“Guess I’m just a sucker for a pretty face in distress. Typical, predictable human.”

Connor nods. “My time with you has been… instructive, Hank.”

“I think I screwed you up a little; exposing you to all my mess. But maybe that’s for the best.”

“I think so.” Connor offers up a little salute with his fingers and moves to go, but Hank rolls his eyes and grabs him by the hoodie sleeve. He tugs Connor forward into an embrace. Connor submits to it with a moment of stiff confusion, then closes his arms around Hank and hugs him tightly. In a moment of inspiration, he slips his calibration coin into Hank’s jacket pocket, hoping he’ll find it there later and recognise it – shiny as it is, untouched by human hands.

“Go on,” Hank says, his voice a higher pitch than usual. He releases Connor with a last affirming pat. “Your ride’s waiting. Big world out there now that you’re a real boy.”

Connor smiles and turns, looking back only once he has reached the passenger door of the idling pickup. The sunrise is at Hank’s back, blotting him out so all Connor can see is a dark, boxy figure outlined in scintillating light. He could be anyone, this vision – human or android. The figure lifts its arm to wave; Connor waves back.


End file.
